


Dancing Through the Slaughterhouse

by FiaMac



Series: Psycho Heroes [7]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: BAMF Arthur, Backstory, First Meetings, Gen, Military Backstory, Pre-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-03 07:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5281475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiaMac/pseuds/FiaMac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how Eames and Arthur first meet and get pulled into the world of dreamshare.</p><p>"They call it dreamsharing. Eames calls it manufactured insanity."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Walked Into the Joint Like We Owned the Place

**Author's Note:**

> Admittedly, I haven't had much to show for myself lately, but once NaNoWriMo is over I promise this series will be picking back up with gusto! Consider these first couple of chapters me dipping my toe back in.

They call it dreamsharing. Eames calls it manufactured insanity, personally, but then he just follows orders like a good little soldier. Goes where queen and country send him, shoots where they point him.

All things considered, it’s not a bad gig, the military. He enjoys the camaraderie of his troop and has an unexpected yet appreciable talent for killing people in sneaky ways. And the SAS serves him rather well, certainly much better than the gutters of London would have done. Yes, Eames is well-suited to military life. Even if it does land him in some psycho-techno experiment shit on a remote base in small-town America.

He looks forward to a break from the killing, anyway, talent aside.

There’s six of them, in all—men pulled from various sections of the British Army because their psych evals indicate a certain amount of mental flexibility and a large dose of reckless indifference. Good qualities to have in human test subjects. Of course, the line fed to them by the Special Reconnaissance Regiment is that they’re undergoing specialized training for an elite antiterrorist strike force. The words “military experiment” flash like tabloid headlines in Eames’s mind, but it beats hunting warlords in Sierra Leone, so allowances must be made for ethical ambiguity.

All told, Eames is pleased with the crowd he’s landed in. There’s Corporal Roddy Patel, a lanky bastard from Liverpool with a sarcastic attitude sharp enough to cut glass. Lieutenant Wisher, a redheaded giant from London, seems like a nice enough bloke. Lance Corporal Maisey, a quiet sparkplug of a fellow. O’Shaughnessy, the youngest of their lot, apparent tech wiz and eager to prove himself to the seasoned crew. And then there’s Captain Pete Gillingham, the only other one in their little group from special forces. Mixed together, they make a lively yet skilled lot. Certainly, Eames has put up with worse.

After arriving on base, they’re given a couple of days to settle in. Make nice with the Americans, soak up the summer heat and enjoy some well-deserved moments of true laziness.

Then the fun begins.

They’re brought to a fairly large lab made claustrophobic by the sheer mass of furniture and equipment shoved into the space—desks laden with computers and stacks of file folders, carts of monitors and wired devices with an alarming medical look to them. What gives everyone pause, however, is the row of narrow hospital beds that dominates the room. Coming off of active duty, most of them have spent their share of time in hospital beds, and none of them are keen to repeat those experiences. Somehow, when SRR said dream-studies, Eames pictured something a smidge more posh.

The room is a flurry of activity. People in white lab coats run around, testing readouts and fiddling with clipboards while calling out randomly in some geek-babble language. It’s all like a scene from a B-grade movie, quite honestly, and Eames doesn’t know if he should be amused or worried.

Their trainer is some American CIA bloke by the name of Dominic Cobb, who introduces himself with exuberant handshakes and a wincing smile.

Eames hates the man on sight. Cobb makes the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up—that combination boy-next-door eagerness and government shiftiness, it throws his perceptions out of whack. Like watching rainfall on a sunny day, something puts you on edge despite the innocuous view.

“Alright, gentlemen. Let’s get started, shall we?” Cobb opens, like he’s presenting at a conference rather than briefing trained warriors. He walks them through what to expect of their first dream-share experience. Eames tunes out—he’s already heard most of this from the base commander when they first showed up on scene—until the spiel veers away from the “exciting innovations” in cognitive studies and moves on to practical information.

“…the military has spent the last year testing this technology for training applications. Basic hand-to-hand training, demolitions, maneuvers, that kind of thing. Results have been favorable. So we’re ready to move on to the next phase of applications. See, we’ve discovered that the dreamscape mimics the subconscious, to the degree that we can essentially read someone’s mind by exploring their dreams.”

“You’re talking about new interrogation techniques,” Corporal Patel chimes in, cutting through the fluff.

Cobb beams like a proud professor. “Yes, exactly. Imagine it, men,” Cobb spans his hands out as if he were projecting visions into the air. “Swift, bloodless access to the information we need to win wars and stop threats. No more torture. No more scandals. Just five minutes in the right mind, and you could unearth the locations of every terrorist cell in the region.”

Cobb spins the government PR line a bit more, but he could have saved his breath. The lot of them may have been tapped by their commanders for this, but they’re all there because they want to be. Looking around, Eames sees excitement in the other men’s eyes. Maybe they buy Cobb’s story about revolutionizing warfare. Or maybe, like him, they’re just tired of the frontlines. Same result.

Still, men like them live and die by the quality of their intel, and that kind of thing is best left to the professionals. Captain Gillingham catches his eye, and Eames gives him a barely perceptible nod in return. Scientific revolution or government conspiracy—in the end, it’s just another mission.


	2. Heads Up High in Disgrace

The first time they go down into a dream, it’s nothing special. Certainly, it’s nothing like the spectacular tableau of magic realism that Eames expects from a dreamscape. Just an alpine glen high up in the mountains—log cabin behind them, stunning view to the front, snow-capped trees all around, and the possibility of a river way off.

It’s a familiar environment to Eames, reminding him of his training days at Mittenwald. Fun times, that. It’s all wrong, though, because he can feel the snow on his face, the air thinned by cold, and it seems so very real. But it was seventy-two degrees this morning, and he knows the view from the barracks shows grassy hills, not wintry peaks. He feels a slight tremor course through his body, shaken by the discrepancy of what his eyes see and what his mind knows to be true.

He crouches, scooping a handful of snow off the ground and squeezing it into a ball. It’s cold and damp in his palm, makes a familiar crunchy sound when he packs the snow tight. He stands and tosses the snowball at a tree trunk.

Lance Corporal Maisey, standing next to him, watches the explosion of white powder and shakes his head. “This isn’t real?” Maisey asks of no one in particular.

Cobbs strolls into the center of the clearing and looks around with a proprietary smile. “That’s right. Everything you’re seeing, everything you’re hearing is just a construction of the mind. We’re here, in this dream, but our bodies are topside, sleeping.”

“Sounds pretty fucking creepy, you ask me,” Patel mutters, kicking at a couple of pinecones and sending them across the ground with a loud clatter. Eames hears a rejoining sound off into the distance, but his mind is spinning too fast to pay it much mind.

“So we’re all dreaming the same dream as you?” Gillingham asks.

Chuckle-Nuts Cobb smiles bigger, like he just did something clever. “Actually, captain, this is _your_ dream. The rest of us are sharing it with you.”

Gillingham looks over, frowning. “Me?” He chews on his lower lip, looking increasingly agitated by the second. “I remember…why don’t I remember that?”

“The mind works different in dreams. Perception, reasoning, all the hundreds of small decisions we make on a daily basis and never think twice about, you now can’t take for granted. You don’t—”

Cobb breaks off as the ground beneath them rumbles violently. Eames instinctively drops into a crouch, sees Gillingham and Maisey do the same. To a man, they scan their surroundings, poised to respond to the first clear sign of where the danger might be coming from. Knowing they’re traipsing about in someone’s imagination, Eames figures anything is possible—from earthquakes to stampeding yetis. So he braces his stance against the growing tremors as the cacophony increases until a deafening roar fills the air, accented by the rifling cracks of snapping timber.

“Incoming!”

Eames can’t tell who sounds the warning, but it’s already too little, too late as a massive avalanche pours over clearing. A great wave of snow and debris spills around the cabin, consuming the structure in mere seconds, and rushes forward to sweep them all up in its hold.

Eames’s thoughts, as he and the others are washed off the cliff, are filled with chaos and pain. The avalanche spins him arse over kettle until all sense of space is lost. In different circumstances, he would be concerned about the concussive blows he’s taking to the head and face, but he’s preoccupied with not being able to breathe. The fear of suffocation, that slow drag into agony, supersedes all.

He bounces about for ages, what feels likes lifetimes but is probably more like seconds, until he’s thrown into something large and dense, stopping his momentum with devastating immediacy. He feels the force of the impact deep inside, where vital organs tear and break _._ The  pain is unspeakable, even if he were capable of speaking.

Eames manages one clear gasp of breath before his world is taken over by _white_ and _wet_ and _cold._ Suffocation is very much still on the table, then. Figures. If the universe is fair, Chuckle-Nuts is lying around somewhere, drowning on a snowdrift. The thought gives Eames a small measure of pleasure. Last wishes, and all that.

_So this is dying_ , he thinks, just before it all vanishes.

 

 

Of course, the world doesn’t end. In fact, it comes back with a rush of panic and nausea.

Instincts honed during years of covert missions keep him in place, eyes closed, until the urge to climb out of his skin passes. Eames clenches his fingers around the cheap mattress underneath him, grounding himself that tactile sense before working his way through the rest. Smell—overheating electronics and Cobb’s cologne. Sound—loud, agitated voices. Sight—the sickly glow of fluorescent lights. The metallic taste at the back of his mouth is best left ignored, for the time being.

“The fuck!”

“Bloody hell.”

O’Shaughnessy is up like a shot, dry heaving into a waste basket held out by a smug-looking lab goon. Eames has a vague recollection of tumbling off a wall of rocks and seeing O’Shaughnessy landing face-first on a jagged tree stump. The details are already blurring, the dream losing its distinct edge even though the adrenaline is still coursing through his cells at full tilt.

Cobb is sitting up, calm as you please. “And that, gentlemen, is what happens when you wake up from the dream.”

“Is it always going to be like that?” Eames asks, thinking this mission might be fucked from the onset.

“Not quite, no. The avalanche is an example of what happens when a dream collapses. Usually that only happens when the dreamer wakes up suddenly, or when the dreamer didn’t already know they were dreaming. Once you’ve all adjusted to the technology, the dreams should hold steady. Meanwhile, one of our techs or myself will go down with you as the dreamer when you train.”

That’s as capricious of an answer that Eames has ever heard, but the techs are already bustling about, preparing to send them back down again. The lines are rechecked. Everyone settles back down into their beds while Cobb waits, hand hovering over the PASIV until everyone is ready. “Shall we?” he asks. It’s rhetorical, though, as he’s already activating the device, and Eames feels the world fall away.

 

  

Second go around is better. Having proven his initial point about stability, Cobb goes in with them as the dreamer. They go back to the mountain top for a little rock climbing, of all things, but it sinks the message in. Despite knowing perfectly well that none of it is true, Eames can feel the ache in his shoulders as they scale a fall of boulders. He even scrapes his knuckles on a particularly tricky handhold. There’s blood and the stinging burn as sweat works into the wounds.

It’s all so very realistic, and it doesn’t take Eames long to work out the implications of pain and blood that acts like the real thing but leaves no tangible scars.

They spend the next few days going in twice a day, sometimes with Cobb holding the dream, but usually with one of the interchangeable lab techs. Captain Gillingham, though not technically in command during the project, insists on rehashing basic maneuvers and tactical skills, getting a feel for all the ways that dreams mimic reality.

It comes more naturally to some of them than others. Wisher tends to forget they’re dreaming and wakes up skittish two times out of three. Cobb says it’s to be expected, but Eames notes the lab techs monitoring Wisher more closely than anyone else.

For Eames, the trickiest part to get a handle on is the time difference. Spending an entire afternoon driving Humvees through a desert, only to wake up a few minutes past lunch time, buggers his sensibilities like the world’s worst teenage drug experiment gone wrong. He wonders if this is what immortality would feel like, and decides there and then that he prefers to die young.

All things told, however, he finds that he loves this crazy-ass business of dreams and subconscious. The ability to be anywhere, to do literally anything he can think of…it’s a thrill like no other. It’s essentially why he left home, why he threw in with the military—this need to become something other than what fate declared for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story and chapter titles from the song "Strychnine" by Floater.


	3. Youth Is Just a Torture

Their little secret military base is a den of gossip, daytime drama, and rumors. Only those immediately involved in the project are supposed to know about dreamsharing, but in the ways of government employees and close-quarters living, everyone knows what they’re not supposed to know. Their handlers strive to keep the British soldiers segregated from American personnel, but bored men will find ways to throw impromptu poker nights and congregate around the largest available television screen. Some might say, it’s the natural order of things. 

And, above all else, they talk. Because if there’s one thing soldiers agree on, regardless of the flag they wave, is that the only men worth trusting are the ones in boots at your side.

Eames and his merry band tell the American soldiers about the exercises they’ve been running, simulating covert operations within the dreams as a means of infiltrating the subconscious. The Americans tell them rumors of intelligence agents on base, using dreamshare to raise a new generation of super-spies. They whisper about the Wunderkind, a mysterious bloke rumored to be the CIA’s latest pet—some ultra-badass wet works operative, trained from the inside out to be the coldest, deadliest motherfucker in action. A veritable bogeyman among professional killers.

As far as bedtime stories go, it makes for lively conversation, with the Americans spouting off all that they know about dreamshare technology.

Eames plays the smiling prankster, filching beers from the kitchens and gleefully cheating at cards in the most obvious ways. Because old habits never really die, they just get pushed aside like an old sweater at the back of the closet. It only takes him a couple of weeks, and one interminable evening watching American sports on the telly, to correctly surmise the CO’s network password.

Gillingham organizes a poker night a couple of days later, giving Eames plenty of time to make free with the base commander’s computer. He meticulously clicks through the base records, learning sadly little of interest. With the exception of some rather oblique mentions of a Project Thanatos and Subject A, he finds nothing that he doesn’t already know or has guessed. Seems Cobb has been uncommonly straightforward with them, to his astonishing credit.

Whatever governmental soup is overseeing this project, their objective is to create special antiterrorist strike teams that can work well below the radar, stripping enemy secrets straight from the mind. As super-secret military intelligence protocols go, this is something Eames can put his faith in. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten by on a bit of thievery, and this time the motive is a sight more altruistic.

When Eames reports back, the group agrees to settle in for the long haul, interested to see where this assignment will lead them.

 

* * *

 

There’s a new face about the next time they enter the dream lab. Stretched out on the farthest bed is a lanky kid, fresh and innocent looking. Probably drafted right out of school—lured by the promise of becoming a man, saving the world—and already they’ve got him drugged and hooked up to wires and monitors and shit like some kind of lab rat.

Sometimes Eames rather hates the world.

Eames wonders what the young fellow’s story is, how a kid like this falls into the hands of shady government operations. Whatever it is, must be interesting, because the kid has a small army of techs fluttering about him, monitoring his readouts and just, in general, watching the kid sleep like a bunch of creepy nursemaids. Even Cobb veers off to confer with the group in hushed voices.

He looks the kid over while the techies are loading up the Somnacin and doling out lead lines to the waiting soldiers. Attractive enough, Eames supposes, in a jailbait sort of way with that dark hair and lean face. But unassuming, especially with his features softened in sleep.

Cobb moseys back over to their side of the lab and indicates his readiness to start the session. Eames takes a final look at Sleeping Fellow and promptly forgets him. The dreams await.

 

* * *

 

Three days later, Eames is on his way to the mess hall when he first gets eyes on the Wunderkind—swaggering down the corridor like it’s a country club and not a ruddy military base crawling with armed, trigger-happy jarheads.

Like a raven among parakeets, this guy stands out. Instead of the same base dress as everyone else, he’s sporting nondescript black training pants and a white tee shirt that does a lovely job of showing off broad shoulders and wiry muscles. But it’s not just that pretty display that has Eames perking to attention.

Despite the casual garb, the man's intense aura leaves no doubt in Eames’s mind that he’s looking at the fabled Wunderkind in the flesh. Closed expression, slight frown, body held in a strange combination of rigid tension and insouciant calm. For all that he’s not a big man, there’s a vibe about this guy that warns Eames’s primitive instincts of another predator in the vicinity.

He watches the Wunderkind as the distance between them closes, some unnamed impulse sparking in his veins. It’s not fear, exactly, but it’s not a peaceful feeling by any means.

Their paths have almost crossed when Eames realizes he’s also looking at the Sleeping Fellow from the lab. That same dark hair, slightly longer than regulation length, the same curve of the jaw. It’s unquestionably him.

Now, Eames isn’t a man prone to shock or surprise. His formative years have taught him to expect everything and nothing at once, which has turned out to be a capital philosophy to have when one makes a living holding automatic weaponry. Plus he happens to think his unflappable charm to be one of his better features.

But here, in this moment, Eames is unsettled.

For a brief second they make eye contact, and the memory of that sweet, darling boy is eradicated by the potency of that dark, assessing gaze. Eames freezes mid-step, as if to step an inch closer would shove him over the threshold of the other man’s gravitational field, but the Wunderkind continues on with barely an eye twitch to acknowledge Eames’s existence.

Eames unabashedly stares at the retreating figure, trying to reconcile this formidable creature with the boy he saw in the lab.

He’s alone in the corridor by the time he realizes his prick is hard as iron.


	4. Laughing From the Powerlines

Over the next few weeks, Eames catches glimpses of the Wunderkind—Arthur Last-Name-Redacted, according to the buzz—around the base, usually passing in the corridors or surrounded by his entourage of trainers and scientists. Eames can only imagine what such specialized attention means, given his own experiences with covert ops and military intelligence, and doesn’t envy the kid his career.

Whenever he sees Arthur that focused expression is always firmly in place, but there’s a growing chill in his demeanor that makes Eames’s skin crawl. A detachment more common to weathered operatives twice his age.

Eames prides himself on his ability to read people, to glean the nuances and depths of a person’s psyche simply by observing the way they smile. It’s a handy skill that’s kept him alive and relatively damage-free. Arthur, however, is a puzzle, and not just because the man never seems to smile.

Arthur is a walking mixed message, exuding conflicting personalities. Sometimes he’s a model soldier, standing at attention and responding to Cobb’s directives with an eager willingness to follow orders. Other times, he’s a stone-faced killer in training, prowling the halls of the base like a predator on the hunt. Then there are those times when Eames sees him in the dream lab, sharp edges dulled by the placidity of sleep. In those times, Arthur barely seems old enough to shave, much less wield a sniper rifle. For the life of him, Eames can’t suss out which persona is the soul of the man, and which are the facades. The continued uncertainty is maddening. 

Eames, being a fan of his own continued state of health, swears to keep of wide berth despite the intrigue he feels every time he sees that too-serious face. Granted, about sixty percent of that intrigue manifests as a tightening in his groin, but that’s hardly the point.

It’s a shame, though. The kid is really rather gorgeous, but in the way that reminds him of the avalanche that wiped his team out on that first day. Stunning but cold, impersonal destruction that overwhelms the unsuspecting, and frostbite being the least of your problems if you get caught up in that maelstrom.

If a small part of him wonders at the thrill to be found, riding out such a storm, well… all men are idiots.

 

* * *

  

One day, Eames arrives at the gym just as Arthur is finishing up a workout. More accurately, Arthur is throwing down on the sparring mats, kicking some serious ass. It isn’t uncommon to see Arthur at the gym, but it is rare to catch him in the midst of one of his topside training sessions. And now, looking on, Eames rather thinks he’s discovered why.

There are five hand-to-hand trainers surrounding Arthur on the mats, each sporting the loose-limbed stance of a man well-accustomed to physical combat. Any one of them would merit cautious consideration, and here is Arthur in full lanky glory taking on all of them at once.

Following some unspoken signals, they attack—one at a time, two at a time, flowing in and out of the scuffle like the trained killers they, in fact, are. And yet Arthur carries on like it’s a casual Friday afternoon. Of course, from what Eames has picked up about Arthur’s training, maybe this is exactly what Arthur considers a casual Friday.

Another body goes flying to the mats, but this time the fallen doesn’t get up. Arthur pivots before the man has even finished landing and confronts the next assault with preternatural anticipation.

Eames’s informed eye picks up on the mish-mash of fighting styles at hand—Eskrima, Krav Maga, a little Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Arthur seamlessly pulls out different techniques with astonishing fluency, for there’s no earthly way a man his age could have mastered so many forms and learned to synthesize them so effectively. Eames thinks of those long sessions Arthur spends in the dream lab, easily twice as long as the stints Eames and his team pull. Asleep when they arrive, still under when they come back topside an hour later and are ushered out the door.

In a sudden urge, Eames wants to leave. Not just the gym, but the base and maybe even the country. To just get far away from this crazy new reality he calls life and the long-term repercussions he refuses to think about. But his feet refuse to budge from even that spot, and he can’t look away from the devastating beauty in front of him.

Arthur’s movements are reflexive, born out of primitive survival instinct rather than conscious methodology. His eyes are dark and empty like a shark’s, seeing not sparring partners but enemies to be eliminated with immediate prejudice. He takes each one down swiftly and efficiently before moving on to the next threat without pause or even a flicker of expression.

Eames shivers, considering the kind of training they’ve been putting this guy through to make him fight that brutally and indifferently. _Thanatos_ , his mind whispers. He is watching the physical embodiment of death, created in a lab just down the hall.

It’s all over in a matter of minutes.

Arthur stands in the middle of strewn bodies, sides heaving, eyes wild. Then he blinks and just sort of…pulls all that feral intensity back inside himself. Straightens his spine, runs a hand through his hair, squares up his shoulders.

Not ten seconds ago, a predator stood appraising his victims. Now there’s just a mild young man who looks like he wandered away from gym class.

If anything, Eames finds this guise more unsettling than the murderous automaton, and that gives him the impetus needed to turn away. He decides to skip his workout that day and rounds the guys up for a game of poker, instead.


	5. Racing Through the Landmines

When Eames actually speaks to Arthur for the first time—the very next morning as it so happens—it’s a rather pedestrian encounter, completely antithetical to the mystique that Eames has built up around the other man. 

Eames is up earlier than usual, brought to queasy wakefulness by a snarling cunt of a hangover. Poker night had turned into a drawn out affair due to Eames’s disinterest in spending any significant amount of time alone with his thoughts. In the unforgiving light of morning however, with his head protesting the continued existence of the world, he vows to develop better coping mechanisms—sworn on his mother’s life, whomever and wherever the woman may be.

A hot shower and half a bottle of ibuprofen later, he’s stumbling towards the promise of caffeine and a greasy fry-up. His watery eyes only want to focus on the three feet of space immediately in front of him, so he fails to notice Arthur approaching the mess hall at the same time until he’s practically walking on the man.

Eames pulls up short, seconds away from collision and Arthur’s undoubtedly violent retribution. “Sorry, terribly sorry.” He drags a hand through his damp hair, painfully aware of his lingering morning breath that no earthly toothpaste was designed to tackle. Arthur, in contrast, looks like he’s been awake and overthrowing third-world governments for hours.

Arthur spares him a perfunctory nod in greeting. “Corporal Emerson, right?” His voice is a smooth baritone, deeper than Eames would have expected, and it does something to Eames on a visceral level that he’s just too hungover to analyze.

And how disturbing is it that the Wunderkind knows his name and rank though they’ve never properly met?

He smiles, slapping on the jovial face that gets him through eighty percent of his interactions with friends and strangers alike. “Indeed, that would be me. But just call me Eames.” And smiles bigger when Arthur just stares back. 

“Sure.” Having exceeded his apparent allotment of human interaction for the day, Arthur enters the mess hall, leaving Eames to trail behind like an afterthought. 

They move through the line together in awkward silence. Well, Arthur is just silent while Eames feels decidedly awkward. He piles his plate up with scrambled eggs and sausage. Arthur meticulously picks out the best pieces of sliced melon to go with his own tidy scoop of eggs, rounding the whole thing out with a blueberry muffin.

They both ignore the fact that Eames is staring like some sort of creeper that gets off on other people’s breakfast habits. He blames cheap American beer for his slip into madness and adds an orange wedge to his plate. Then, feeling self-conscious and resentful about this strange instinct to impress Arthur on a nutritional level, he pours fake maple syrup all over his sausages, making sure to douse the orange wedge for good measure.

Sadly, this profound declaration of independence goes unnoticed as Arthur is too busy pouring himself a cup of coffee—black and unsweetened, the pretentious fiend—and has already started walking away before Eames finishes with the syrup.

“See you around, Corporal.” Arthur departs with another one of those stupid nods, leaving Eames to—yet again—watch him walk away.

 

* * *

 

 

Cobb tells them it’s time to work on something new—militarizing their subconscious, or sub-security in pithy vernacular. But when Eames’s team shows up to the lab, Cobb in nowhere in evidence. Instead, in the mother of all unwelcome surprises, their new instructor turns out to be none other than the Wunderkind, himself.

Standing proud and rigid next to the PASIV, Arthur looks like a terrier confronting a pack of Rottweilers, but he shows no sign of discomfort. Not even when Patel calls him “kid” and makes him run through his introductory spiel a second time. Maisey is the only one beside Eames that doesn’t look on with patronization.

They’ll be getting their first taste of going up against sub-security by taking a trial run through Arthur’s head—a prospect that instantly pumps ice through Eames’s veins. The rest of the team clearly underestimate Arthur and surely believe their combat training and experience will win the day, but Eames remembers how casually Arthur dispatched five master combatants at once, remembers the ruthless way he moved and that dark, vacant stare. He knows this is going to be rough.

In truth, it’s much worse than that—it’s a slaughter.

 

 

 

Arthur’s subconscious is structured like a metropolitan city, complete with bustling streams of people moving with purpose.

Eames doesn’t like the way the projections eye him and the team—even an old woman in a babushka stares him down like she’s reading his soul. He moves until he stands back-to-back with Maisey, gripping his sidearm down by his leg.

He doesn’t recognize any landmarks, but it feels like any urban center he’s visited throughout the years. Streets stretch out in every direction, into infinity, and glossy skyscrapers block out the sun. The level of detail is astounding, the most intricate dreamscape any of them have experienced thus far. Eames doesn’t know if it’s all merely a construct or if he’s looking at the true scope of Arthur’s mind. He can only marvel at the potential complexity of such a man.

They’re standing on the sidewalk in front of an Armenian deli, open for lunch though no one seems to be partaking of the basturma special. Against such an innocuous backdrop, their uniforms and weaponry make them stand out like Vegas showgirls, and they all change into civvies before Gillingham can even voice the command. Well, most of them, do—Wisher still struggles with changing things in the dream, but he at least manages to change the DPM material into a solid blue that looks more utilitarian than military.

“So… what then?” Patel asks. “Do we search the kid out? Could be anywhere.”

Eames shakes his head, watching as a cab slows to a crawl in front of them. The driver stares from inside, muttering into a mobile. “We’d get nowhere if we just search willy-nilly. We use the projections, see if anyone can give us a bit of direction.”

Gillingham nods, already moving towards a pair of women in skirt suits and trainers. “Excuse—”

The second he addresses the projections, a current rips through the dreamscape like a worldwide shiver. In one startling wave, every head snaps in their direction—the eyes of an entire city suddenly focusing on their group with imminent hostility. Conversations cut off mid-word. Cars screech to full stops. Even the buildings loom closer overhead with an ominous, metallic groan.

A sharp, pained cry breaks the moment. Eames spins around to find Gillingham struggling with the two women projections. One has launched herself at him and is trying to sever his carotid with her teeth, blood pouring off her chin like a horror movie. The other woman has both hands locked around Gillingham’s rifle, trying to wrest control of the weapon with a strength that belies her petite build.

Eames moves forward to help, but a wrinkled hand swipes in from nowhere, going for his eyes. He ducks and pivots to find the babushka moving in for a second try. He catches her by the wrist and swings her back into the swelling crowd around them. Within seconds, every projection on the street has formed a dense wall of bodies, pining the soldiers in like herded cattle.

“Fire at will!” Someone—not Gillingham—gives the command.

Eames already has his sidearm up and fires in quick succession into a cluster of Asian tourists, hesitating only briefly when his sights land on a kid who couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Behind him, more gunfire charges through the air, but the crowd keeps moving in. Eames empties the last of his clip into the face of an old man wearing a mustard-spattered apron. He dreams up his favorite service rifle and resumes firing in the time it takes to blink, but even that’s enough time for a fresh wave of projections to fill the gap.

Eames lets his mind go blank and continues to shoot. At times, he’s forced to wrangle with a projection that gets in close enough to swing a fist, yank at his hair, and even stab at him with a broken bottle. He steps overs Wisher’s body to close ranks with the other soldiers, sickened to be grateful for the way his pursuers trip over the corpse.

It’s a free-for-all of violence, the likes of which Eames has never experienced. Even terrorists and guerilla fighters come with a certain amount of predictability, but this… it’s pure nightmare. Businessmen in suits turn into lethal combatants. Busloads of schoolchildren pour into the street in snarling mobs of biting teeth and tearing fingers.

Their defensive formation is quickly overwhelmed, torn apart by the ebb and flow of bodies. Eames loses sight of his comrades and tracks their positions by gunfire. For a while, anyway. In time, the only thing he knows is blood and adrenaline. He fights back on pure survival instinct, all his careful training falling by the wayside when confronted by an unending swarm of mindless killers.

Eventually he falls to his knees, bleeding from a dozen wounds, and looks up into the rabid gaze of a twelve-year old girl. She swings a crowbar at his face, killing him instantly with one blow.

He’s never been so grateful to die.

 

 

 

When they reconvene topside—Patel demands a smoke break immediately upon waking—everyone eyes Arthur with the quiet wariness one gives a feral animal. Sure, rumors have been tossed around about what the Wunderkind gets up to on base, but there was no preparing for this. They’ve all just had front-row seats to hell on earth inside Arthur’s mind, and he doesn’t even have the decency to look winded.

He scares them, now, Eames can tell. This lanky bastard with the face of a bored bank teller has seasoned commandos doubting all their years of training and combat experience, doubting their newfound skills at mastering the subconscious. But they listen closely this time when he explains subconscious militarization, none more so than Eames himself, and they look past the boyish exterior to see the hardened operative lurking within.

Arthur meets their scrutiny head-on and gives a grim little smile. “Alright, let’s go again.”

 


	6. Stumbling Through Our Borders

After the spectacular massacre that is their introduction to subsecurity, each of the men have the dubious privilege of working one-on-one with Arthur. Eames looks forward to his turn with as much excitement as passing a kidney stone, and rightly so, it turns out. The experience proves to be equally painful and nerve-wracking.

On the bright side, he at least learns that Arthur is not an emotionless automaton, after all—he’s too fond of yelling at Eames to be a robot.

To his utter mortification, Eames finds his subsecurity woefully inadequate, even after five tries at protecting his mind against Arthur’s intrusion. Truthfully, he’s mostly frustrated with himself. Despite Arthur’s admonishments on obvious defense measures, Eames’s security always manifests as military troops on patrol. Readily identifiable by their uniforms and regulation haircuts, it’s far too easy for Arthur to identify them and take them all out, single-handedly. Wearing a three-piece suit, of all things.

On this latest, sixth run, Eames stands on the balcony of 1940s walk-up and watches Arthur take out his remaining forces in the street below. Looking like something out of a mobster movie, Arthur is a dark storm of blazing guns and slicked-back hair. It would be hot as fuck if it weren’t frustrating as hell. Resigned to failure and another lecture, Eames doesn’t even flinch when Arthur arrives in the room behind him.

Eames spins on his heel, perversely enjoying the sight of Arthur in all his irate glory. He can almost forgive himself for this ill-advised attraction of his—Arthur is a true sight to behold, all that violent energy tucked away into tailored silk and wool. To say nothing of that adorable scowl.

Arthur stalks forward into Eames’s personal space, causing him to instinctively press back against the balcony railing. “You’re not even trying,” Arthur accuses through gritted teeth. 

And resignation might be one thing, but Eames has never been one to accept a dressing down without comment. “Easy for you to say,” he retorts, but Arthur is already talking over him.

“We’ve been over this too many times, Corporal. Uniformed soldiers are like waving a giant target in the air; even an untrained extractor could get around them if he simply paid attention. How many times do I have to tell you, you need to use your full subconscious for security if you’re going to be effective against intrusion.”

Eames throws his arms out in exasperation. “It’s my bloody _subconscious_. If I could control it, it wouldn’t exactly be called the subconscious, now would it? And, so help me,” he sneers, “if you tell me I just need to _free my mind_ —”

“Jesus fucking—” And the next thing Eames knows, Arthur is shoving him backwards over the balcony railing. He has a flicker of a moment to enjoy the free-fall before everything disappears.

 

 

 

When Eames comes to, Arthur is already standing over him, looking deliciously homicidal. “Are we doing this?” he growls, “Because I’m not interested in fucking around all afternoon.” 

Eames removes his line and sits up abruptly, forcing Arthur to back up. “Might do you a bit a good if you did.”

This time, Arthur is the one sneering. “Cute. Now if you’re done dicking about—” He cuts Eames off with a sharp gesture before the innuendo is voiced. “You know what, shut up. Just shut up and get your mind in the game, and I do mean that literally, or—” 

“You actually threatening me?” Eames presses, advancing another step.

“Just calling you out for being lazy piece of shit.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“As you should. You’re wasting my time with this GI Joe routine. If you can’t deliver something more impressive than cannon fodder, you’re out.” 

Eames stills. “Out? What, you mean out of the program?”

Arthur stares him down. “That’s right. This isn’t the place for mediocrity.”

_Bloody wanker._ It doesn’t surprise Eames that Arthur has the clout to get him booted from the project. It _does_ surprise him, though, how much he wants to avoid that. But if staying means turning himself into something he never wanted to be...

Years ago, Eames made the most important decision of his existence—die an early and shameful death, or take his chances on a second life. Since then, he’s forced himself into the mold of the perfect soldier—toeing the line, following orders, putting the greater good ahead of his own self-interests. He’s kept a tight leash on the wild part of him that always wants to zig and zag instead of marching in a straight line…and now this baby-faced punk dares to accuse him of sitting on his laurels…

Well, there’s a time and place for good behavior.

Eames throws his chin up, hating the fact that Arthur is the slightest bit taller than him. “Perhaps you’re suggesting I arm myself with bloodthirsty toddlers, hm? Take a page from _your_ book?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Arthur scoffs “Are you really this squeamish? We’re talking about your _mind_. There’s no such thing as a non-combatant in sub-security. Unless you’re determined to be an idiot—”

“Look, you little twat. I’m trying—”

“To do what? Die repeatedly in unimaginative ways?”

“So terribly sorry if not all of us can be connoisseurs of death, Agent Thanatos.”

Another man would have seen the way Arthur blinks at that and think nothing of it, but Eames has spent enough time scrutinizing Arthur to parse out the subtle variances in that icy expression. So he knows he strikes some hidden chord with that blow. But the moment is brief, and Arthur bulldozes over that speck of humanity as if it never were. “You’re just making excuses, and you know it,” Arthur charges. “Do you want this or not?"

Eames realizes it’s not an idle question. “You mean that, don’t you? You would get me kicked off this project! After everything I’ve put into this. You…you’re a right cocksucker, now aren’t you?”

Eames has the pleasure of watching an angry flush darken Arthur’s face, but it’s hardly a consolation prize. Because he knows he’s lost this skirmish. He knows he’s going to have to back down to this asshole, and that just pisses him right off.

“I’m waiting for an answer, Corporal Emerson,” Arthur barks.

Eames can barely form the words through his gritted teeth. “Yes. Yes, I want this.”

Arthur gives him one of those arrogant nods that makes him long to knock a few teeth out. “Then stop wasting both of our times with this hesitant bullshit.” Arthur smirks, then, without a trace of humor. “Come on, Corporal. Dream bigger. _Impress_ me.”

It’s a challenge that Eames can’t help but pick up. “Oh, darling,” he croons. “You want bigger? Just you wait.”

 

 

 

He comes to in the dream sitting at a bus stop, in front of a small shopping center. His dreamscape isn’t like the metropolis in Arthur’s mind, more like the suburban towns he favors between deployments. Which, he hates to admit, is why Arthur is right about his form of subsecurity.

Well, if there’s one thing he learned in his misspent youth—if you can’t win…cheat.

Eames hops to his feet and heads towards a fast food restaurant at the end of the block, head swiveling every time he spots a dark head of hair. He makes it to the restaurant without incident and ducks into the bathroom. A quick scan proves he’s alone in the small room, and he locks the door. Takes a steadying breath.

This is the moment of truth, he knows. Arthur isn’t going to give him another chance if he botches this session. Time to pull out all the stops. 

There’s a theory he’s been developing over the last few weeks. If the dreams allow him to go anywhere do anything, why not _be_ anything? Or rather, anyone.

It’s an idea he’s tossed around with Maisey and the other lads, but none of them have worked out the trick of it despite several tries. It’s a gamble, now, relying on an unproven theory when he stands to lose everything he never knew he wanted. But then, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s gone all-in on a shaky hand.

Eames parks himself in front of the sink. Stares at his own reflection in the tiny mirror bolted to the wall. Stares and stares, telling himself he sees red hair instead of brown, narrow shoulders instead of his own bulk.

It doesn’t work.

“Fuck! Fucking fuckity fuckballs.” He paces the small bathroom. “Fucking Arthur.”

Frustrated, pissed off, and just a teeny bit fearful, he tries again. This time, though, he closes his eyes and breathes out until it feels like every cell in his body has been depleted of air. Takes a deep breath, and again. He lets his mind coast through memories and half-forgotten daydreams. Let’s go of things he wasn’t aware of holding on to.

And suddenly, like flipping a switch, he understands what Arthur had been telling him all day. And it’s so counterintuitive, he could laugh.

The subconscious isn’t about _thinking less_ —it’s about _being more_. It’s about throwing yourself whole-heartedly into the role you’ve chosen to play, whether that a paranoid bastard who doesn’t even trust his own dreams, or a pale-skinned teenager with a heart-stopping grin.

Eames doesn’t know how long it takes—long enough to leave his legs aching from inactivity—but when he opens his eyes, staring back from that mirror is the youthful face of Jonnie Whitmore, the first bloke Eames ever kissed. He looks down and sees pale, tapered fingers with the nails bitten down to the quick. Eames used to spend hours watching those hands during maths class, memorizing the way they looked and moved so he could recreate them in his fantasies at night. Looking in the mirror now, he sees he’s perfectly recaptured Jonnie as he last saw him—sixteen, tall but lean, with freckles on his forehead and a slight gap in his teeth.

He fucking did it.

He tamps down his elation before it can bubble up. Damned if he’ll lose now because he let the dream get unstable.

He slips out the bathroom, adopting the slouched walk of a teenaged boy without second thought. Cruising back out onto the street, he mingles in with his own projections, careful to keep his face slack even as his eyes scan for Arthur.

Eames walks three blocks before he spots Arthur. He stands a fair way ahead on the other side of the street, hands in his slack pockets in an attempt to look casual. But Eames can see the rigid set those black-clad shoulders, sees the way Arthur inspects everything that moves.

Time to ante up.

A glance at his reflection in a car window reassures Eames that his disguise is holding true. He follows a pair of young women to the crosswalk and across the street. As he moves in closer, he’s careful to keep his path indirect and nonthreatening. Arthur is a wary son of a bitch and, even wearing someone else’s face, Eames knows he can only get within a few feet without spooking his target.

But with his dice loaded, a few feet are all he’ll need.

Eames comes to a halt when he’s standing but two paces away from Arthur. Predictably, Arthur’s attention narrows in on him like a laser sight. Eames waits until they make eye contact before dropping the mask.

A small bit of grandstanding, he knows. The prudent thing would be to hold the guise of a projection until the job is done, shoot Arthur out of the dream completely unsuspecting. But a part of him, the rebellious impulse he’s kept tethered all these years, wants Arthur to see. Wants Arthur to know what he’s pulled off.

That part of him rejoices in the stunned widening of Arthur’s eyes. Eames can see it in that dark gaze that has scorned, mocked, and dismissed him—Arthur is astonished. And impressed.

Satisfied, Eames brings his gun level with Arthur’s head and pulls the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> Story and chapter titles from the song "Strychnine" by Floater
> 
> Look for the [Psycho Heroes Soundtrack](https://open.spotify.com/user/qvxh3o4rvca6soodo82lagqt8/playlist/2TOcGz53b6ONaVS8Q3gIGZ) on Spotify!


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